The six best books for introverts

Jennifer Mathieu is a Young Adult author. Her new novel is Devoted.

One of her six best books for introverts, as shared at The Huffington Post:

OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu

As someone who has battled mild OCD since childhood, I can tell you that in OCD Love Story, Haydu painted this disorder with real understanding and care. Haydu's novel follows Bea -- a compulsive "checker" who doesn't want to acknowledge how uncontrolled her OCD really is -- and Beck, a young man whose compulsions force himself to work out heavily and stay impeccably clean. When the two meet at a support group for teenagers with OCD, romance blooms, but how will they fall in love when they have to use so much energy to fight off their compulsions? Haydu handles the tricky topic with sensitivity and delivers a realistic yet hopeful ending.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Page 69 Test: OCD Love Story.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine books even non-readers will love

Nicole Dieker is a freelance writer, copywriter, and blogger. At B & N Reads she tagged nine books even non-readers will love, including:

Flowers in the Attic, by V.C. Andrews

If you’re of a certain age, V.C. Andrews’ 1979 Flowers in the Attic might have been passed to you under a desk in middle school, making its way from one backpack to another so it could be taken home and read in secret. Even the cover implied secrets: the flap with the rectangle cut out so you could pull it back and see the four Dollanganger siblings with their grandmother looming overhead.

Once you gorged yourself on the melodramatic prose, you could follow it up with the even more melodramatic 1987 movie, which seemed pre-designed to be screened during slumber parties. Of course, if you read or watched Flowers in the Attic in the ’80s or ’90s, you probably gathered your friends together to have a wine-and-cheese screening of the 2014 Lifetime movie remake, and tweet about how Mad Men’s Kiernan Shipka is (impossibly!) old enough to play Cathy.

And maybe you’ve kept your copy of Flowers in the Attic with the vague idea that you might give it to your own daughter someday. But maybe it’s better if she gets it surreptitiously passed to her from a friend.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books with turning points for teens

Liz Kessler is the author of the New York Times best-selling series about Emily Windsnap, as well as three adventures about Philippa Fisher and her fairy godsister. She is also the author of the middle-grade novel A Year Without Autumn and the YA novel, Read Me Like A Book.

One of Kessler's ten favorite books involving a turning point for a teen, as shared at the Guardian:

The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell

One of my favourite 2015 debuts, Sarah Benwell’s beautiful and heartbreaking book features Japanese teenager Sora who is diagnosed with ALS (known in the UK as motor neurone disease). Sora’s story is about rising above the limitations imposed by his illness and finding strength in both the ancient wisdom of the Samurai and the current support of his two best friends. When Sora realises exactly what he has to do, and takes control of his life, he makes a decision that none of us would ever want to face.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top YA time travel novels

At B & N Teen Blog, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick tagged five top YA time travel novels, including:

Proof of Forever, by Lexa Hillyer

Four friends grow apart after spending months’ worth of summer camp together, but they’re about to get the chance to reconnect…whether they like it or not. All four girls are sent back in time, and they have to relive their lives to find a way back to the present. Don’t be fooled by the lighthearted setting, this novel has depth.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten unlikely friendships in literature

Alex Hourston’s first novel In My House was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2013. One of her top ten unlikely friendships in literature, as shared at the Guardian:

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

“How angry am I? You don’t want to know. Nobody wants to know about that,” opens Messud’s book, introducing us to Nora, single, 42 and tired of being good. She rewinds to tell us the story of her relationships with the Shahid family, each of them beautiful, brilliant and kind. We know from the outset that the ending won’t be pretty; the novel explores the ways in which both parties use each other, before landing on an unguessable twist.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books that explore what might happen when technology betrays us

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well.

At B & N Reads Somers tagged seven books that explore what might happen when technology betrays us, including:

Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton

It’s a tale as old as time: Man figures out how to clone dinosaurs, dinosaurs turn around and eat man. The idea that there are things mankind was not meant to investigate is an ancient one, that has served as the basis for horror novels since time immemorial. Jurassic Park updates this concept of forbidden knowledge and the rotten fruits it yields with the slick idea of cloning dinosaurs from residual DNA traces—with predictably horrific results. If only people would stop thinking cloning is merely incredibly creepy and realize it could also knock us all down a notch on the food chain.

Read about the other books on the list.

Jurassic Park is among Damian Dibben's top ten time travel books and Becky Ferreira's eleven best books about dinosaurs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five sci-fi books featuring homicidal artificial minds

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well.

At the B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Somers tagged five sci-fi books featuring homicidal artificial minds, including:

A.I. Apocalypse, by William Hertling

Hertling mimics Ultron’s use of the internet in this fast-paced, fun novel, but does it one better. When a talented programmer is forced to create a computer virus, he does too good of a job. It infects everything, everywhere, and the world shudders to a stop as every single computer-controlled aspect of life—which is, these days, everything—stops working. And then the virus gains sentience, and things go from bad to worse. Hertling makes the idea of a rogue A.I. using the Internet much more terrifying than the Marvel blockbuster, which basically reduces the internet to a hiding place and library for the Big Bad.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nick Offerman’s six favorite books

Actor Nick Offerman (NBC's Parks and Recreation) has a new book out: Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom With America's Gutsiest Troublemakers.

One of his six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Tenth of December by George Saunders

Saunders, one of our most hilarious and incisive living writers, is another author whose entire canon I can recommend with enthusiasm. I suggest reading this masterful book of short stories twice; the interconnectedness of the themes seems even more profound on the second pass.

Read about the other entries of the list.

The Tenth of December is among Melissa Albert's four books that will make you glad you are alive now (and not in the past or the future).

Also see: Nick Offerman’s 12 favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven YA novels for the pop-culture obsessed

Rachel Paxton-Gillilan is a freelance writer and semi-professional nerd.

At the B & N Teen Blog she tagged seven Young Adult novels for the pop-culture obsessed, including:

The Summer I Became a Nerd, by Leah Rae Miller

Comic books and superheroes have pleasingly transitioned from nerdbait into just plain awesome for everyone. But if your comic book love is strong, this is the book for you. Madelyne keeps her nerd-self super-secret, actively lying about it to everyone including herself. During the school year, it’s all pom poms and pep rallies, but during the summer, she becomes a raging comic book fanatic. When Logan discovers her secret, the two spend a summer bonding over comic books, live-action role playing, and first-person shooter games. So basically, they have the best summer ever.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Matthew Crawford's six favorite books

Matthew B. Crawford is the author of Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work and The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction. One of his six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Tacit Dimension by Michael Polanyi

Polanyi, a Hungarian philosopher, analyzed the experience of a blind man using a cane to consider how our tools shape our attention once they've become unobtrusive extensions of the human body. This has far-reaching consequences for how we understand the role of the body in cognition, and for design.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten sci-fi sagas for teens

Paul Magrs' latest novel is Lost on Mars.

At the Guardian, he tagged his top ten sci-fi sagas for teens, including:

The Tears of the Singers by Melinda Snodgrass

My guilty secret all these years has been my being a fan of Star Trek not in any of its TV or movie incarnations in particular – but rather the original novels from the 1980s. Melinda Snodgrass was one of a whole gang of women writers who wrote all the best Trek books (see also: Diane Duane, Barbara Hambly, AC Crispin, Jean Lorrah.) This one is my all-time favourite since it puts Uhura at the centre of the action. A world of singing alien seals are all that stands between the universe and utter destruction, and of course the seals are being clubbed to death one at a time by ruthless men who collect the crystals the seals shed at the point of death. It sounds sappy but it’s absolutely wonderful. Where else would you ever have Uhura falling in love with a prog rock organist, a shipful of furious klingons, Captain Kirk vanishing into a vortex and a planet full of warbling manatees?

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best dark books

Amelia Gray's new story collection is Gutshot.

One of her ten best dark books, as shared at Publishers Weekly:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Thinking back I imagine every scene taking place in the pitch black, figures chained or roiling in the background, human and animal figures screaming. The book’s sentences group about their paragraphs like a band of feral cats munching on corpses. They raise the hairs on your arms. The running story is a post-apocalyptic march alternating terror and gloom in pursuit of the sea for some reason. Finishing it threw me into such a delicious depression, I started reading it again right away.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Road appears on Weston Williams's top fifteen list of books with memorable dads, ShortList's roundup of the twenty greatest dystopian novels, Mary Miller's top ten list of the best road books, Joel Cunningham's list of eleven "literary" novels that include elements of science fiction, fantasy or horror, Claire Cameron's list of five favorite stories about unlikely survivors, Isabel Allende's six favorite books list, the Telegraph's list of the 15 most depressing books, Joseph D’Lacey's top ten list of horror books, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five unforgettable fathers from fiction, Ken Jennings's list of eight top books about parents and kids, Anthony Horowitz's top ten list of apocalypse books, Karen Thompson Walker's list of five notable "What If?" books, John Mullan's list of ten of the top long walks in literature, Tony Bradman's top ten list of father and son stories, Ramin Karimloo's six favorite books list, Jon Krakauer's five best list of books about mortality and existential angst, William Skidelsky's list of the top ten most vivid accounts of being marooned in literature, Liz Jensen's top 10 list of environmental disaster stories, the Guardian's list of books to change the climate, David Nicholls' top ten list of literary tear jerkers, and the Times (of London) list of the 100 best books of the decade. In 2009 Sam Anderson of New York magazine claimed "that we'll still be talking about [The Road] in ten years."

--Marshal Zeringue